The Lake and a Volcanic Island

On Sunday, the TBI Field School students spent a hot day out on Lake Turkana with a boat ride to Central Island.

Our first stop was to a small fishing village to talk with the locals and to observe life at the lakeshore.

Sacred Ibis at the shoreline with a locally made raft in the background

As mentioned in the previous post and in comparison to the last 5 – 10 years, Lake Turkana is experiencing higher lake levels. Check out the drowned palm trees in the pic below in which the shoreline here has advanced about ¾ of a kilometer!

Drowned palm trees near the shores of Kalokol

While on the lake, the waves moving the boat about made it fun to some but not so fun to those with motion sickness. 🙁 Large waves on Lake Turkana can form due to wind moving across the large lake surface area.

Aileen, Mike, and Samantha force out a smile

Charles, Page, and Linda (myself) are enjoying the ride!

After some “fun” on the lake we made it to Central Island- one of five volcanic centers along the axis of Turkana Basin. These centers have erupted multiple times since the Middle Pleistocene and a record can be seen in the exposed rock layers.

Jayde and Larisa take a selfie along the crater rim of Flamingo Lake.Note the flock of flamingos at the shoreline.

Being silly after a steep hike up to the crater rim of Flamingo Lake.

While hiking on the island, we made a stop at another volcanic crater lake. This fresh water body is a breeding site for crocodiles and is therefore called Crocodile Lake. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your view), there were not many crocodiles and many were too far to see much detail without binoculars. Can you see the two crocodiles in the second lake picture below??

TBI Field School Students and visiting researchers try to spot a crocodile

Two crocodiles in view in Crocodile lake. It does not appear to be the mating season!

We returned a bit sunburned and “seasick” but overall had a great time exploring another area of the Turkana Basin. More adventures to come ….

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Hi I'm Linda. I'm the Resident Academic Director for the Origins Field School. In addition, I'm a geologist. I have been working in the Turkana Basin since 2011 and am interested in reconstructing the past landscape on which our ancestors evolved.